Where Mentally Ill Turn

Dec. 3, 2014

To the Editor:

When I was ordained a rabbi more than half a century ago, I thought that troubled congregants would increasingly turn to mental health professionals rather than the clergy to address their anxieties. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Not only must seminaries train future clergy members for such challenges, but they should also expect them to become self-reflective and to experience their own psychotherapy so that they can best serve others. For those of us who traveled that road, it has made a world of difference.

CHARLES A. KROLOFF Westfield, N.J., Nov. 29, 2014

The writer, a past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, teaches rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.